


Busy Scissors

by Miss_Flamingo



Category: Tales from the Gas Station
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Jack getting the affection he deserves, Rosa POV, Rosa being adorable, could be shipping?, hair styling, self-care, touch starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-12 23:10:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20164168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Flamingo/pseuds/Miss_Flamingo
Summary: Since Rosa started working at the gas station, she always thought something was off about Jack's appearance. Not his eyebags, not his thin frame, but his hair. When he tells her he doesn't have a proper hair care routine, she immediately takes it upon herself to fix the problem. Cute friendship bonding ensues.When going through the TFTGS tag on here, not only did I notice there were only 3 stories (we are so lacking here, guys) but all of those stories were about Jack and Jerry. Now, I'm not knocking Jack or Jerry, I love those guys with all my heart, but I thought my girl Rosa needed some attention too. So here we have it, the first Rosa-based Tales From the Gas Station fanfic on AO3!





	Busy Scissors

When I heard that there was a job opening for a full-time position at that gas station at the edge of town I’ve heard so much about, I knew it would be the perfect job for me. Gas station attendant seemed like a pretty straight forward job, the most I could do to mess it up would be spilling a slushie or two, I’ve always had a bit of a case of the butterfingers. It was full time, so I would be spending more of my time there than the average person would want to spend at a “shitty gas station”, but when I saw the job listing I saw it gave an adequate salary… well, maybe “mildly mediocre” is a better word for it. Nevertheless, I’m always up for a challenge. 

I had an interview with the owners, but it was pretty short and simple. From what I could tell, they wanted to have me on the team as soon as I made it clear that I actually wanted to be there. I know I should've taken that as a bad omen and most likely not a sign of a successful or even safe establishment, but I’d decided to stay optimistic and just interpreted that as a sign that I’m a generally likeable person. That’s what my parents always told me, anyway. So I landed a job with little to no issue. The next step was training, and the owners told me that I was going to be trained by their most trustworthy and capable employee, a man named Jack.

I arrived on time with a minute to spare for my training session. When I walked into the store, it seemed as normal as any other gas station I’ve seen, save for the pyramid display of lawn gnomes at the front of the store. I barely saw any homes with lawns this close to the gas station, so I didn’t know why they were on sale, or why there was so many of them. The store was empty by the looks of it, so I called out for somebody.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

A few seconds later, I heard the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. Then, a man stepped out, drying his hands with one of those pieces of cheap brown paper towel you see in every public bathroom (strange enough, even the high-end places tend to have them). He looked… okay, I’ll be upfront, he looked terrible. I don’t mean terrible as in ugly, I mean the kind of terrible someone looks like after an especially rough day, but that 'day' was his entire life. His skin was pale, his frame was thin, his left leg below the knee was completely missing and he had crutches under his arms, and he had the most drastic eye bags I’ve ever seen, so much so that he almost looked like the raccoon I saw scurry off when I was walking in. But other than the look of exhaustion on every part of his body, the most noticeable part of him was his hair. It was a dark brown, shoulder-length, and looked like it hadn’t seen a brush since the Bush Administration. Stray hairs were everywhere and the length didn’t look like it was a specific style choice, more the result of neglect. I didn’t have much time to analyze his appearance though, because soon he was staring right at me. 

“Hey,” he said. 

My words stumbled out of my mouth as I tried to speak clearly. “Um, hi. My name is Rosa, Rosa Vasquez.”   
I held my hand out to shake, which he took. His hand was surprisingly warm when I shook it, but that was probably just because he was just running them under warm water. 

“Jack,” he responded.

“I know.” I realized I said it a bit too quickly when he gave me a curious glance. “I mean, I know who you are. The owners told me you would be training me, so that’s how I know who you are. It’s not like I was stalking you or anything.”

“Oh yeah, Rosa. They told me I would be training a new hire. You’re full-time?” I nodded. “Let’s not waste any time then.” 

As he started walking (or limping I guess) behind the counter, I went over to the strange lawn gnomes and inspected the pyramid. There was a green one on top and I went to pick it up. From behind me, I heard, “Don’t do that. You’ve been here for 2 minutes, I don’t want you going to the infirmary so quickly.”

“What’s wrong with the gnomes?”

“The green ones bite.”

* * *

It was 2 weeks since I started working at the gas station and I admit the hours were starting to crawl, especially the graveyard shifts, even with Jack at my side for many of them. It was around 3:30 in the morning when I finished restocking the drink machine. When I came back out from throwing away the trash, I saw him reading a book with his crutches beside him. His bangs were hanging down in front of his face but he didn’t seem to mind.

I don’t know why, but his hair has been getting so much of my attention ever since I started working here. There were so many other parts of his appearance that should be more worrying to me, but for whatever reason, it was his hair that I had the urge to talk about. So I did.

I walked up to the counter. “Hey, Jack? Quick question.” He looked up from his novel. “What’s your routine?”

Obvious from his reaction, that wasn’t the question he was expecting me to ask him. “My routine?”

“You know, your morning routine. Your self-care routine. Your… hair routine.”

“Um, well, on the days I actually have work in the morning, my morning routine usually consists of me eating breakfast, cleaning myself, getting dressed, and getting picked up by O’Brien. As for self-care or hair routines, well… I don’t really have one.”

I couldn’t help but drop my jaw in shock. “You have no self-care routine?!”

“Other than the essentials like brushing my teeth and showering, not really.”

“You don’t wash your hair?”

“I wash it, but I don’t really try.”

“Why not?”

He took a pause like he had to meticulously plan every word of how he was gonna answer my question. When he did answer, it was, “I just don’t think the effort is necessary.”

“Of course it’s necessary, Jack. Your hair is as important to your self-expression as everything else. Sometimes it’s even more. You’re not even in your 30s, you have plenty of life ahead of you. That means a lot of people are gonna see you. How will…” I trailed off when I saw his expression. I really struck a chord, but I didn't know where. All I knew is that look on his face was really making me regret what I just said. “Jack?”

“It’s okay, Rosa. Trust me, I don’t need to do my hair. Nobody is going to care enough about me to worry about if I look good or not.”

“I will.”

He got a flash of surprise across his face, but it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. Fortunately, I didn’t blink.

My shift carried on like normal until it finished at 5am. I got my stuff together and waved goodbye to Jack as I left. To anyone else who saw me during work, I looked like I was just doing my regular duties, but for the last hour and a half, I couldn't get our conversation out of my head. Going over it, that’s when I realized it. Jack is a sad guy. Sadder than I thought was humanly possible, but he absolutely didn’t look it. Actually, I don’t think he knew himself if he was, but little ol’ Rosa knows when someone is feeling down in the dumps, and Jack was in the bottom of a landfill. As I walked home, I was thinking of just how I could maybe get some of that trash out of the way, but then I got an idea. I just really hoped that Jack was going to be there for his next scheduled shift.

I pulled up to the gas station around 9 am and parked my car. In the back seat was my large, purple duffle bag. I had to practically tear apart my storage closet to find where I stuffed it away, but it was worth it. After all, nothing else could fit the supplies I jampacked in it. I searched through my bathroom for all the hair care products I could find, from 3 different brands of shampoos and conditioners to brushes and combs, to hairspray and styling gels, and even some mousse in there too. Apparently living with your parents has an unknown perk; you get a wide selection of hair products. Why did I have so much hair stuff in my back seat?

Because I was about to give Jack the best haircut of his life.

I lifted up the hefty duffle bag and swung it over my shoulder, then locked my car and entered the gas station. It wasn’t actually my shift, it was my day off, but Jack didn’t seem at all fazed about me being there, or the heavy bag I was holding. I assumed, at this point, Jerry had pulled stunts like this so often, showing up when he’s not meant to be there with inconspicuous stuff with him, it’s just commonplace for Jack. 

He did still make the effort to ask me, “Whatcha got there, Rosa?”

I made a bit of a show putting the bag on the counter in front of him (what can I say, I get dramatic when I have a surprise for someone). “Open it up and find out.”

He put his book down and unzipped the top, then took out a pair of scissors. “... Should I be worried?”

I laughed lightly. “No, silly, I’m not gonna hurt you. Look a little more.”

He took out a bottle of shampoo and read the label. His face told that he was starting to catch on, then he saw the hairbrush. He sighed. “Is this from what I said a couple of days ago about my hair? Rosa, I appreciate the gesture, it’s really nice, but I wouldn’t even know how to use half of this stuff.” He pulled out the mousse. “Like this. What even is this?”

“Exactly, which is why you won’t be doing anything. I will.”

He paused, not responding, so I continued.

“Jack, amigo, I’ll be honest with you here, your hair makes me sad. When you told me you don’t practise self-care, my heart broke a little. I can’t just sit idly by while you let your ends split.” I reached for a strand of his hair to make my point, and when I felt how split his ends actually were, I almost audibly gasped. I was expecting split, but not that much.   
“Jeez, Jack.”

“This is not helping to convince me.”

“Please, I am begging you, I am grovelling at your feet here, let me give you the hairstyle you rightfully deserve. It won’t even take your whole shift.”

“You want to do it while I’m still on the clock?”

“Well, we have everything we need here. Water,” I gestured to the bathroom, “a counter to put everything on, you’re already sitting, and there’s an outlet right there for the hairdryer. Plus, days like this will be crawling, I can tell. Barely anyone is going to come in. And be honest, if anyone does, would you really care? Apparently, you getting your hair done is not the weirdest thing that’s happened here.”

Jack sat back on his stool, thinking long and hard about my offer. He felt his split ends between his fingers and let out a long, deep sigh. “It won’t take the whole shift?”

“I swear on my life.”

In a reluctant tone, he said, “... Fine, you can cut my hair, Rosa.”

I could feel my face muscles being stretched as far as they could with my giddy grin. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise you won’t regret this. First things first, inspecting the damage.” 

I went behind the counter and stood behind him and got my hands all up in his hair, inspecting every part from root to tip. I was right to use the word 'damage' because every part from root to tip had a problem. The first thing I noticed was the tangles and knots, but when I pushed that away to see the scalp, I saw a very worrying amount of dandruff. There was also the overall quality of the hair strands, they didn’t seem strong enough. Then the aforementioned length and split ends. On the plus side, I didn’t see anything that would result from chemicals like hair dye or chemically relaxed straightening, so I came to the conclusion that it was a regular case of ‘don’t know, don’t care’, as in 'he’s not sure how to take care of his hair and hasn’t tried to learn'. And thank god too, because the other option was that he was actively ruining his hair.

“Okay, I got a plan now. You sit tight, I’ll be right back.” 

I threw up a couple of playful finger guns at him and walked off to the storage closet to find one of our cleanest big buckets and a smaller container. I took them to the bathroom and stuck the smaller container under the sink as I let the warm water run. I started filling up the bucket bit by bit until it was full. I shut off the tap and turned around to lift up the bucket, but my heart jumped when I saw someone else in there with me. 

“Ah! … Oh, it’s just you, cowboy.”

Leaning against the wall in his heart patterned boxers and stetson hat was the Bathroom Cowboy, lightly strumming a ukulele. I would say I’ve become pretty good friends with the cowboy, that is when he’s here. It’s the weirdest thing, he’s not here all the time, but when he is here he just appears like he never left. He strummed his ukulele and gave me a gentle “howdy.” 

“Don’t mind me barging in, I’m just getting a makeshift sink together so I can clean Jack’s hair. Did you know he doesn’t even know what to do with mousse? He is really is something else, huh?”

“Well, cornbread don’t go sideways in the winter.”

I took a moment to process what he just said then slowly nodded my head. “You got a point there. I’m not sure what the point is, but it’s a good one.”

He smiled and went back to humming to himself while playing a simple tune. I picked up the bucket, which was heavier than I thought it would be, and carried it out of the bathroom and into the storage. There, I laid down paper towels all around it. I walked back up to the counter and got the bag. Jack was reading again, but now he was also tapping his fingers on the counter. 

“Okay, come on. Let’s get started!”

He followed me on his crutches to the back room where the station is set up. I helped him get on his knees (or knee, it was not an easy process), then prepared a towel.   
“All right, Jack, now hold your breath.”

The ever-present skeptical look on his face hadn’t gone away yet, which was expected. “And you’re absolutely sure you’re not trying to kill me?”

“I promise I’m not trying to kill you.”

He paused, inhaled, and dunked his head under the water, supporting himself with his hands on the sides. It shocked me when I saw it; for someone who looked so concerned with doing this at first, he was really willing to submerge his head in a bucket of water. But maybe he just wanted to get it over with… or maybe he’s been in this situation before. Who knows? I made sure to move quickly, moving his locks in the water to get it all properly wetted before he has to come up for air. When he did, he gulped down air in a gasp. I used the towel to dry his face and put it around his shoulders and neck to catch the drips. 

I rummaged through the bag and found a bottle of extra strength shampoo and squeezed out a generous amount. If only someone made no-tear/anti-dandruff/extra-strength-and-volume shampoo, I would be set for life. But, as I’m still pretty broke and wasn’t going to buy every kind of shampoo, I had to choose one of those features, so I went with the hair strength one. It was lilac scented, my favourite flower smell, not as strong as lavender but not as subtle as gardenia, the perfect amount of aroma. It was more difficult than I thought it would be to get past all of the matted hair and to the scalp, but I did eventually. I made sure to be as gentle as I could to not make him uncomfortable, but it still needed a little bit of elbow grease. It lathered around his roots nicely.

“How are you feeling, Jack?”

I peeked my head around to look at his face to find his eyes were a bit more lidded than usual. It must have been soothing to him.

“I’m all good, Rosa.”

I smiled and continued washing his hair and scalp until everything was as clean as I could possibly make it. “Okay, Jack, head under again.”

He did so, this time shutting his eyes to not get any shampoo in his eyes. I worked all the soapy shampoo off and went in with the conditioner. The great thing about conditioner is that the right ones do wonders for detangling. I actually managed to get some knots out while I was feeding it into the hair, which made the inevitably painful process of combing him out a little easier. I didn’t want to rinse his hair with the very soapy water, that would defeat the point of rinsing, so I left the conditioner in and I would just rinse it out later. Besides, the conditioner helps with combing.

“Can I open my eyes now?”

I dried off the area around his eyes. “Yes, you can.” 

He opened his eyes and I helped him out of the storage and back behind the counter, then retrieved the duffle bag and dropped it on the counter. I took out everything that was in it, which is a lot - and I mean a lot - of stuff. The entire counter was basically filled with hair products, accessories, and appliances.

He picked up a package of barrettes. “Why did you bring these?”

“I don’t know, just wanted to experiment with styles. Some guys look cute in barrettes.”

“You think I would look cute in barrettes?”

“We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we, sunshine?”

I picked up a pack of hair elastics and multiple toothed combs. I separated the hair (the best I can) into clear sections to make it easier and started combing it out. I used the biggest comb first. At first, I thought it was going to be easier than before since I started at the ends, which, for the most part, weren’t tangled.  
But then I went up.

Those tangles were a real piece of work. If I thought I had to use elbow grease before, I hadn’t seen nothing yet. There was one point where I felt like I needed to put Jack’s head in a vice just to make his head stay still! When I would look at his face, I could tell the yanking and comb getting caught was uncomfortable at best, painful at worst. The conditioner was helping, though. When I was about halfway through the sections I tied off, I told him to brace his body against the counter, which he did. It helped, but it made a very strange visual when somebody walked in.

The man at the front of the store looked like your average gas station customer, a flannel and dad cap wearing guy who came in to pay for his gas. I was so caught up in doing Jack's hair I didn’t even notice he was filling up his truck the whole time. He stopped in the doorway, we made eye contact, bottles and jars and whatnot were strewn about, and Jack with a towel around his neck and his arms firmly bracing himself against the counter while I was roughly combing out his hair. The man stood there silently for what felt like ages. I finally broke the silence by clearing my throat and saying, “Hi, can I help you?”

He made the transaction very quick, not even waiting for me to ask him which pump it was and walked out without asking what was going on once. In any other circumstances, I would be terribly embarrassed, but I made it my personal mission to fix Jack's hair and as soon as the customer closed the door I went right back to it.

“Should we be worried about that?” I asked Jack as I continued combing.

“Nah, it’s fine. Customers like that - ow! - keep to their own.”

By the end of it, I felt like I just did a full upper body workout, but it was so, so satisfying to run my fingers through it when I was finished. Jack told me his head was aching, so I gave him some time to heal up while I emptied and refilled the bucket. (the cowboy wasn’t there that time. See what I mean?) 

I rinsed him through again to get the extra conditioner out and by the time that was finished his head stopped aching for the most part. With his hair still wet, I decided to start on getting all that dandruff out. Even after a shampoo, conditioning, and comb, there was still quite a bit. When I was young, I had a bad case of dandruff. My skin has always been really sensitive, so I was really dandruff prone. The good thing is that my mom knew how to fix it and all of that dried skin out without ruining my hair. I decided to apply the same method. It’s simple and there are only 2 things that are needed: an oil of your choosing and a small boar bristle brush. Whenever my mom would treat it, I always felt like I was getting a scalp massage, so I was hoping Jack felt the same.

I took a small squeeze bottle of tea tree oil and started running along his scalp between the hairs. I then took the bristle brush and slowly dragged it along the scalp and out to the hair follicles. It worked like a charm I saw large chunks and flakes of dandruff released from his head. I could practically feel the relief he must’ve been feeling. Sure enough, when I looked at his face, his eyes were closed. 

“Jack, how are you doing?”

He didn’t respond with words, he just gave me a thumbs up. 

“How long has it been since someone has done this for you?”

He took a long pause before responding with “I can’t really remember. If it did happen, it wasn’t in the last 10 years.”

A sad smile spread across my face. “Well, I’m honoured to be the one who does it.”

That process didn’t take nearly as long as combing through and by the end, it was like his entire head shed a layer of skin like a snake.

It was clean and orderly, his scalp was shed and his hair’s integrity was repaired… okay, it was a bit better than it was yesterday at least. Hair strength doesn’t come from one treatment, despite how much I really, really would want it to. I ruffled his hair between my fingers.

“Okay Jack, now comes the styling. What are you feeling?”

“What do you got?” He asked in return. 

“Um, well, that’s a pretty open-ended question. If you asking me what I can do, the possibilities are endless, not to flex or anything.”

“Well, you are the one who wanted to fix it in the first place and you know what you’re doing, Rosa. I trust you to style it how you want.” 

I felt my heart flutter a bit at his comment. Jack really trusted me with his appearance already? Granted, it’s not really something he held dearly in the first place, but I’m gonna enjoy my small accomplishments anyway. 

He finished with, “just no braids or anything. I want to wear it out.”

“Aw, but you would’ve looked cute with pigtails!” I joked, and I put his damp locks into two pigtails on top of his head. I was joking at first, but honestly, he did look kinda cute with pigtails. 

He rolled his eyes playfully. “Just get styling, Rosa.”

I followed his vague orders and took out my phone. The night before, I went online and saved a ton of pictures of hairstyles I thought would look good on him. One of them was Justin Trudeau, but at a second glance he doesn’t really have that ‘golden boy’ aesthetic to him, so I deleted it. When looking them over, I realized that they were all sort of like that, all well kept with luscious locks. But I was picking the photos when I didn’t have his actual face for reference, and now that I did I saw that super-well-kept was not for him, but the luscious locks were. So after some milling about I decided on a style: intentionally messy but still aesthetically appealing.

The first step was getting his hair dry and I decided on a blowout for more volume. I set up a desktop mirror and readied my hair dryer’s diffuser and round brush. Whenever I’m drying my hair I’m so used to working with a lot more of it, mine reaches my middle back, so the process was a lot quicker than I thought it would be. When it was done, I ran through it with my brush, a turquoise oval brush.

Now came the most important part, the cutting itself. Because he was going to be the one actually taking care of his hair after I was finished with it, I abstained from doing much layering (my heart broke but it was a sacrifice I was willing to take) and chose to keep it simple. The ends absolutely had to go, they’d been bothering me the whole time, but how much of the shaft would go along with it? I took a wide-toothed comb and a pair of salon scissors and measured how much should go. 

I held my breath the entire time; I needed to get this part right. One big slip and I’ve condemned Jack to bad hair days for a month, and that was unacceptable. I took off about 2 inches of length as a base. Yeah, I know it’s a lot right off the bat, but I knew what I was doing. I cut and snipped until each strand was uniform, or as uniform as I could get it with the slight wave his hair had, and he was already looking miles better than how he was 10 minutes ago. I tied off the back of his hair and turned him around in his stool to get a look of what his bangs should be, that is if I was gonna give him any in the first place. 

He looked up at me as I brushed the hair out of his face. I stopped and couldn’t help but stare. He could tell I was staring him right in the eye and looked a little uneasy. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“Your, um, your eyes. They’re… green?” Not just any green, the kind of green you would see on a pine tree or the green of a kale smoothie. In short, it was the darkest, richest, smoothest green I’ve seen on a person, and it stunned me speechless.

“Yeah, I have green eyes.” 

“How did I not know that?” 

“I guess you don’t look at them that often.” 

“Well I should, they’re gorgeous!” 

His eyes widened and I felt my cheeks get hot with embarrassment. I could not believe I just told Jack, who I only knew for a couple weeks, his eyes were gorgeous so casually like that. We stood in silence for… well, I couldn’t quite say how long but it felt like hours. His expression of a kind of bashful shock didn’t change, he didn’t seem to blink either (which wasn’t helping my cause because that just made me stare more!). 

I snapped my fingers in front of his face a few times and broke him out of the trance. 

“Sorry for being so upfront about that, I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable. I barely see green eyes on a person, I don’t know what came over me to say that.” 

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” He cleared his throat. “Thanks, by the way. People have said things about my eyes before, but I’ve yet to hear gorgeous. Although, they’re usually talking about how bloodshot they are, or the skin around the eyes, and even I know that’s not at all gorgeous.” 

“Well, I think people should compliment your eyes more often.” I smiled at him, he smiles back.

“So no bangs?” 

“Definitely no bangs!” 

I took a brush and combed his hair back so his face could be totally seen, then I messed with the placement so it framed his face nicely. I made his hair parting asymmetrical to add more dynamics, he didn't strike me as a hair-parting-right-down-the-middle kind of guy. With more brushing and snipping and combing and placing and a bit of gelling and pretty much everything but dying it blue, my hard work finally reached its end. I took a sweep and swept away all the extra hair from his shoulders, his face, and the counter. I gave him a final coating of argan oil hairspray, then stepped away and looked at him from the front. 

I swear to God if Rosa from 2 weeks ago walked in right now, she would have no idea she was looking at Jack. Gone was the long, matted, dandruff-ridden, split-ended Jack Townsend, and in his place, the smooth, classy, healthy, and purposefully-messy Jack Townsend stood. His dark brown hair now only reached his ears, rather than his chin like before; It was more voluminous, had a slight sheen to it, and even a gentle curl at the ends from when I took my curling iron to it. The effect was exactly how I wanted it: messy, but intentionally messy. It could almost bring a proud tear to my eye. 

Apparently, my joy was seen on my face because he quirked his brow slightly. “Could I take a look?” 

“Oh, right! Of course, of course!” I took the big hand mirror I brought with me and held it up to his face. I would describe in great detail what his reaction was, but it was hard to discern. I’m guessing he’s gotten really good at his poker face because at first, I couldn’t tell what he thought. I got worried. Did he not like it? Did I overstep my boundaries? Was it too short, not short enough? Maybe he did want me to dye it blue!

My worries drifted away when I saw him take the mirror out of my hands and hold it up, turning his head left and right to get a full view. His pine-tree-like eyes had a certain sparkle to them I’d never seen before, and even he couldn’t hold back a smile.

“Rosa, I don’t use this word that often so you know I really mean it… this is amazing.”

I grinned ear to ear. “So you do like it!”

“Yeah, I do. You were right, no bangs was a good idea. But…” he pulled out a strand of hair in the centre of his widow’s peak, twisted it around his finger, and let it fall. “There.”

“See? You’re learning already!”

The bell rang as the front door opened and Jack and I turned to see who it was in unison. It was Jerry, who tossed a cigarette butt out onto the asphalt outside the doors before walking in. He had his usual confident strut, but it slowed to a halt when he saw how I transformed the gas station into a makeshift hair salon. Though, he was probably more preoccupied with Jack's appearance.

“Well, well, well,” he said bemused. “Hello there, Khloe Kardashian.”

Both my face and Jack’s looked slightly confused, but for different reasons.

He asked, “Out of every celebrity, why a Kardashian?”

I asked, “Out of every Kardashian, why Khloe?”

Jerry waved a dismissive hand. “You get my point. So, what made you decide to get all glitz and glamoured up for today, Khloe?”

Jack rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t the one who sought it out. Rosa asked to do my hair and I said yes.”

“Huh, that actually sounds pretty cool of you, Rosa. Maybe you could do my hair sometime,” Jerry said in his slightly flirtatious tone. I’ve learned to tell when he’s actually hitting   
on someone and when he’s just having fun, this was him having fun.

I decided to play back. “Oh, I could never. Your hair is already perfect the way it is.”

He let the back of his hair out of its short ponytail. It was a flaxen blonde and wavy without a doubt. He kind of looked like if a surfer dude smoked weed. He tousled his hair with his hand. “Yeah, you do have a point. It’s like a Greek god’s, these locks. We should just leave it alone.” 

We shared a laugh together. I pointed to Jack. “Did you know he has green eyes?”

“Did you not?”

“No! And it caught me way off-guard too.”

Jack piped up with, “She called them gorgeous.”

Jerry smirked and didn’t even try to hide it. If anything, he purposefully made it big. “Oh ho ho, I can hear the wedding bells already.”

I tossed the barrettes at him. “Shut up.”

He caught them and didn’t even hesitate to pin back his self described "Adonis locks" out of his face with them. It was impressive how quickly he did it. “People hated Jesus because he spoke the truth. Now if you need me, I’ll be getting a slushie.” 

He stepped with his heel towards the slushie machine and I turned back to start packing up the hair salon I’ve created. I unplugged the hairdryer, made sure the bottle and jars were properly secured, gathered the combs, and I even went back to the storage closet to restore it to how I found it (actually I made it a little better. That storage closet really needed some TLC). I had everything back in my duffel bag except for two things: the barrettes and one of the brushes, the turquoise one I was using. I already knew where the barrettes were and decided it would be best if he just kept them, but I couldn’t find the brush.

I turned to Jack and started to ask, “Hey, did you see where I put that…” but I trailed off because my question was already answered. Jack was holding the brush, twirling it in his hand and feeling the bumpy tips with his fingers. “Jack?”

He looked up and noticed I was talking to him about the brush. “Sorry, sorry. Here you go.” He held it out for me, but I didn’t take it immediately.

“Do you want to keep the brush?”

His eyes shifted. It was clear to me he wanted to keep the brush, for what reason I didn't know. If he just wanted a brush he could go out to the dollar store and get a perfectly fine one there, but he seemed kind of attached to this one. Maybe it was sentimental because of the day's events... or may it's because it was mine.

“Well…" he started, "... it’s a nice brush. If it’s not too much trouble -”

“Yeah, yeah, of course! Keep it, and make sure to use it, okay?”

“Got it.” 

I gave him a grin and zipped up my duffel bag. “Well, my work here is done. I’ll see you tomorrow, Jack. And I expect to see that situation in tip-top shape.” I slung the bag over my shoulder (God, I forgot how heavy it was) and waved. “See you later, Jerry!”

He muffled something I could only interpret as “See you later, Rosa” because his mouth was already full of blue raspberry slushie.

I walked across the floor and out the front door, giving myself a million pats on the back. Today was one of the greatest accomplishments I’ve done in my entire cosmetic history, I saved a scalp’s life today and I couldn’t be prouder. I turned around for one last look and saw something I was pleasantly surprised with. 

Jack was turned around so he was facing the cigarette display case behind him and looking at his reflection. He was running his fingers through his hair and giving it a gentle   
brush, and, I am really really hoping I’m right about this part, I could’ve sworn I saw him genuinely smile.


End file.
